Our Wednesday News Analysis | Israel’s objectives unlikely to shift as a result of election

The international community cannot allow a future Israeli government to present itself as a peacemaker, while continuing to invest in settlements, occupation, war and genocide (File/AFP)

The settlements themselves drive the occupation.
They require land and therefore land confiscation;
protection and therefore an expanded military presence;
and water, roads, and infrastructure, and therefore the appropriation of Palestinian resources.
Together, these elements deepen dispossession and generate further Israeli violence.

More troubling still, even a government leaning toward the center-left might succeed in presenting Israel to the international community
as a country ready to move beyond the image it acquired during three years of genocide, without fundamentally changing its conduct on the ground.

The international community must therefore remain vigilant. It cannot allow a future Israeli government to present itself
as a peacemaker or to sell the illusion of a newly reformed Israel, while continuing to invest in settlements, occupation, war and genocide.

In the past, many Palestinians and Arabs followed Israeli elections closely. They did so not because they entertained illusions that a Zionist leader would deliver peace and justice, dismantle the occupation or remove illegal settlements. Rather, they feared that some Israeli leaders were worse than others. They hoped to avert the worst-case scenario.

Over time, however, that distinction gave way to the belief that all Israeli leaders were essentially the same. This is not pessimism. It is experience.

Consider, for example, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements during the Oslo peace process under Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Between 1992 and 1995, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, increased from about 111,000 to 140,000 — a rise of more than 25 percent — according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, drawing on Israeli statistical records.

The same pattern continued under the Labor government of Ehud Barak. Within his first six months, Barak’s government issued tenders for 3,196 settlement housing units, exceeding the annual average under his right-wing predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.

When Naftali Bennett formed a coalition government in June 2021 that included the Arab party Ra’am, settlement expansion continued unabated. According to Peace Now, the Bennett-Yair Lapid government advanced plans for 7,292 settlement housing units during its first year, a 26-percent increase on the annual average recorded under previous Netanyahu governments...

Read more: Israel’s objectives unlikely to shift as a result of election

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SILENCING PALESTINE: AMERICA’S SHAMEFUL HISTORY OF REPRESSION CONTINUES

Source: Palestine Chronicle
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/silencing-palestine-americas-shameful-history-of-repression-continues/

By Stephen Rohde
Published October 24, 2026

The repression of Palestinian speech on American campuses occurred in partnership with the Trump administration’s vicious crackdown on student activism.

US President Donald Trump. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)

EDITOR’S NOTE | A long, yet short-to-the-point treatise on ‘corruption’ in American Democracy.

Under pressure from pro-Israel groups, “the Biden administration took steps to advance the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism and thereby rubber-stamped universities’ crackdown on critics.”
And the Trump administration “has gone even further, weaponizing antisemitism as a pretext to advance broader far right agendas in higher education.”

AAUP and MESA found that all but one of the 102 so-called “antisemitism” complaint letters focus on speech critical of Israel;
of these, 79% contain allegations of antisemitism that simply describe criticisms of Israel or Zionism with no reference to Jews or Judaism;
and at least 50% of complaints consist solely of such criticism.

According to the report, no antisemitism Title VI lawsuits have proceeded to trial or resulted in a judgment for plaintiffs to date,
and Title VI allegations have been dismissed in nine lawsuits, two of which are currently on appeal.

The Trump administration, in collusion with scores of public and private colleges and universities, has unleashed one of the most widespread and coordinated campaigns to suppress free speech and restrict the right to protest in US history.

The targets? People who have the courage to support Palestinian liberation and sovereignty and to condemn the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza and its atrocities in the West Bank.

While we have seen many attacks on constitutionally protected civil liberties throughout American history, the scope and scale of the systemic repression of Palestinian speech makes this one of the worst. And it’s far from over.

The history of the United States has been stained by repeated episodes in which the government, aided and abetted by private organizations and institutions, has deliberately censored speech and punished protests that espouse political views at odds with those in power. While the direct victims of such systemic repression suffer the most, the American people as a whole are also being victimized.

We are being denied exposure to facts and perspectives which, if freely available, would drive our opposition to policies that the Trump administration, the Israeli government, and their henchmen would prefer go unchallenged. Repression skews public debate in one direction, insulating government propaganda from scrutiny and thereby marginalizing, if not eliminating, inconvenient information and contrary positions.

Yet, in tandem, a very different American tradition has taken hold. As brave defenders of the Palestinian people and outspoken critics of Israel are being punished for nothing more than expressing their political views, they and their allies are fighting back, exposing the injustices and organizing nationwide resistance.

Indeed, time and again we have seen that the cruel and unjust acts of repression at the hands of the American government and its compliant enablers are eventually exposed by the people themselves, thereby strengthening our resolve to resist and redoubling our demands for justice...

Read more: Silencing Palestine: America’s Shameful History of Repression Continues

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A NEW ISRAELI GOVERNMENT MUST MAKE ARABS PARTNERS, NOT ENEMIES

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2026-10-26/ty-article-opinion/.premium/a-government-of-change-must-make-clear-arab-citizens-are-partners-not-enemies/000001a1-7481-d087-a9b7-75b797a50000

By Ron Gerlitz
Published October 26, 2026

A new coalition that unseats Netanyahu won't undo years of incitement, but it can chart a new path

A boy sits on his bicycle next to a Likud campaign banner that reads "The right or Palestine" in Bnei Brak on Sunday. Credit: Nir Elias/Reuters

The incitement against Arab hospital staff has been gaining momentum …
"If you don't trust someone to carry a gun, you shouldn't trust them to hold a syringe"

I have been working in the Jewish-Arab sphere for nearly 20 years. Over the past several months, vicious incitement against Arab citizens has surged. Its unprecedented intensity has one clear objective: to ensure Arab parties are once again shunned as potential coalition partners in a new government. That would prevent a change of government.

Take healthcare, for example. The incitement against Arab hospital staff has been gaining momentum. A video by a far-right influencer claiming that "if you don't trust someone to carry a gun, you shouldn't trust them to hold a syringe" is a typical instance of the online flood. Violent attacks on Arab bus drivers have become routine – alongside inflammatory rhetoric portraying them as a threat. Two commentators on the Israeli TV Channel 14 recently claimed that "many Arab bus drivers deliberately block intersections to create traffic jams ... Arab drivers who hate us, transporting busloads of 50 or 100 people at a time, is a ticking time bomb."

Likewise with incitement against Arab teachers in primary schools and kindergartens. Recently, Jewish parents in some areas received an anonymous SMS demanding: "Are you Jewish? Does your child's kindergarten have an Arab teacher or aide? Report them to us." For these hatemongers, the first day of school is the start of hunting season...

Read more: A New Israeli Government Must Make Arabs Partners, Not Enemies